LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


Ik 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


By 
JOSEPH    H.    CHOATE 


EIGHTH    THOUSAND 


NEW   YORK 

THOMAS    Y.   CROWELL  &   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1901, 
By  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Company. 


AN  ADDRESS 


D«LIVERKD     BEFORE    THE 


EDINBURGH   PHILOSOPHICAL  INSTITUTION 

NOVEMBER    THE    THIRTEENTH 
NiNETEiEN  Hundred 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 


When  you  asked  me  to  deliver  the  Inaugural  Address 
on  this  occasion,  I  recognized  that  I  owed  this  compli- 
ment to  the  fact  that  I  was  the  official  representative  of 
America  —  and  in  selecting  a  subject  I  ventured  to  think 
that  I  might  interest  you  for  an  hour  in  a  brief  study  in 
popular  government,  as  illustrated  by  the  life  of  the 
most  American  of  all  Americans.  I  therefore  offer  no 
apology  for  asking  your  attention  to  Abraham  Lincoln 
—  to  his  unique  character  and  the  part  he  bore  in  two 
important  achievements  of  modern  history  :  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  integrity  of  the  American  Union  and  the 
emancipation  of  the  colored  race. 

During  his  brief  term  of  power  he  was  probably  the 
object  of  more  abuse,  vilification,  and  ridicule  than  any 
other  man  in  the  world  ;  but  when  he  fell  by  the  hand  of 
an  assassin,  at  the  very  moment  of  his  stupendous  vic- 
tory, all  the  nations  of  the  earth  vied  with  one  another 
in  paying  homage  to  his  character  ;  and  the  thirty-five 
years  that  have  since  elapsed  have  established  his  place 
in  history  as  one  of  the  great  benefactors  not  of  his  own 
country  alone,  but  of  the  human  race. 

One  of  many  noble  utterances  upon  the  occasion  of  his 
death  was  that  in  which  "  Punch  "  made  its  magnani- 
mous recantation  of  the  spirit  with  which  it  had  pursued 
him :  — 


6  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

"  Beside  this  corpse  that  bears  for  winding  sheet 
The  stars  and  stripes  he  lived  to  rear  anew, 
Between  the  mourners  at  his  head  and  feet, 
Say,  scurrile  jester,  is  there  room  for  you  ? 
•  ••••••••••• 

**  Yes,  he  had  lived  to  shame  me  from  my  sneer, 
To  lame  my  pencil,  and  confute  my  pen  — 
To  make  me  own  this  hind  —  of  princes  peer. 
This  rail-splitter — a  true  born  king  of  men." 

Fiction  can  f urnisli  no  match,  for  the  romance  of  his  life, 
and  biography  will  be  searched  in  vain  for  such  startling 
vicissitudes  of  fortune,  so  great  power  and  glory  won  out 
of  such  humble  beginnings  and  adverse  circumstances. 

Doubtless  you  are  all  familiar  with  the  salient  points 
of  his  extraordinary  career.  In  the  zenith  of  his  fame 
he  was  the  wise,  patient,  courageous,  successful  ruler  of 
men ;  exercising  more  power  than  any  monarch  of  his 
time,  not  for  himself,  but  for  the  good  of  the  people  who 
had  placed  it  in  bis  hands  ;  commander-in-chief  of  a  vast 
military  power,  which  waged  with  ultimate  success  the 
greatest  war  of  the  century  ;  the  triumphant  champion 
of  popular  government,  the  deliverer  of  four  millions  of 
his  fellow  men  from  bondage ;  honored  by  mankind  as 
Statesman,  President,  and  Liberator. 

Let  us  glance  now  at  the  first  half  of  the  brief  life,  of 
which,  this  was  the  glorious  and  happy  consummation. 
Nothing  could  be  more  squalid  and  miserable  than  the 
home  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  —  a  one- 
roomed  cabin  without  floor  or  window  in  what  was  then 
the  wilderness  of  Kentucky,  in  the  heart  of  that  frontier 
life  which  swiftly  moved  westward  from  the  Alleghanies 
to  the  Mississippi,  always  in  advance  of  schools  and 
churches,  of  books  and  money,  of  railroads  and  news- 
papers, of  all  things  which  are  generally  regarded  as  the 
comforts  and  even  necessaries  of  life.     His  father,  igno- 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  7 

rant,  needy,  and  thriftless,  content  if  he  could  keep  soul 
and  body  together  for  himself  and  his  family,  was  ever 
seeking,  without  success,  to  better  his  unhappy  condition 
by  moving  on  from  one  such  scene  of  dreary  desolation 
to  another.  The  rude  society  which  surrounded  them 
was  not  much  better.  The  struggle  for  existence  was 
hard,  and  absorbed  all  their  energies.  They  were  fighting 
the  forest,  the  wild  beast,  and  the  retreating  savage. 
From  the  time  when  he  could  barely  handle  tools  until 
he  attained  his  majority,  Lincoln's  life  was  that  of  a 
simple  farm  laborer,  poorly  clad,  housed,  and  fed,  at 
work  either  on  his  father's  wretched  farm  or  hired  out  to 
neighboring  farmers.  But  in  spite,  or  perhaps  by  means, 
of  this  rude  environment,  he  grew  to  be  a  stalwart  giant, 
reaching  six  feet  four  at  nineteen,  and  fabulous  stories 
are  told  of  his  feats  of  strength.  With  the  growth  of 
this  mighty  frame  began  that  strange  education  which  in 
his  ripening  years  was  to  qualify  him  for  the  great  des- 
tiny that  awaited  him,  and  the  development  of  those 
mental  faculties  and  moral  endowments  which,  by  the 
time  he  reached  middle  life,  were  to  make  him  the  saga- 
cious, patient,  and  triumphant  leader  of  a  great  nation  in 
the  crisis  of  its  fate.  His  whole  schooling,  obtained  dur- 
ing such  odd  times  as  could  be  spared  from  grinding  labor, 
did  not  amount  in  all  to  as  much  as  one  year,  and  the 
quality  of  the  teaching  was  of  the  lowest  possible  grade, 
including  only  the  elements  of  reading,  writing,  and  ci- 
phering. But  out  of  these  simple  elements,  when  rightly 
used  by  the  right  man,  education  is  achieved ;  and  Lin- 
coln knew  how  to  use  them.  As  so  often  happens,  he 
seemed  to  take  warning  from  his  father's  unfortunate 
example.  Untiring  industry,  an  insatiable  thirst  for 
knowledge,  and  an  evergrowing  desire  to  rise  above  his 
surroundings,  were  early  manifestations  of  his  character. 


8  ABUABAM   LINCOLN, 

Books  were  almost  unknown  in  that  community,  but 
the  Bible  was  in  every  house,  and  somehow  or  other  '^  Pil- 
grim's Progress,"  "  iEsop's  Pables,"  a  "  History  of  the 
United  States,''  and  a  "  Life  of  Washington  "  fell  into  his 
hands.  He  trudged  on  foot  many  miles  through  the 
wilderness  to  borrow  an  English  Grammar,  and  is  said 
to  have  devoured  greedily  the  contents  of  the  Statutes 
of  Indiana  that  fell  in  his  way.  These  few  volumes  he 
read  and  re-read  —  and  his  power  of  assimilation  was 
great.  To  be  shut  in  with  a  few  books  and  to  master 
them  thoroughly  sometimes  does  more  for  the  develop- 
ment of  character  than  freedom  to  range  at  large,  in  a 
cursory  and  indiscriminate  way,  through  wide  domains 
of  literature.  This  youth's  mind,  at  any  rate,  was 
thoroughly  saturated  with  Biblical  knowledge  and  Bibli- 
cal language,  which,  in  after  life,  he  used  with  great 
readiness  and  effect.  But  it  was  the  constant  use  of  the 
little  knowledge  which  he  had  that  developed  and  exer- 
cised his  mental  powers.  After  the  hard  day's  work 
was  done,  while  others  slept,  he  toiled  on,  always  read- 
ing or  writing.  From  an  early  age  he  did  his  own 
thinking  and  made  up  his  own  mind  —  invaluable  traits 
in  the  future  President.  Paper  was  such  a  scarce  com- 
modity that,  by  the  evening  firelight,  he  would  write  and 
cipher  on  the  back  of  a  wooden  shovel,  and  then  shave 
it  off  to  make  room  for  more.  By  and  by,  as  he  ap- 
proached manhood,  he  began  speaking  in  the  rude  gath- 
erings of  the  neighborhood,  and  so  laid  the  foundation 
of  that  art  of  persuading  his  fellow  men  which  was  one 
rich  result  of  his  education,  and  one  great  secret  of  his 
subsequent  success. 

Accustomed  as  we  are  in  these  days  of  steam  and 
telegraphs  to  have  every  intelligent  boy  survey  the 
whole  world  each  morning  before  breakfast,  and  inform 


ABEAnAj\f    LINCOLN:  9 

himself  as  to  what  is  going  on  in  every  nation,  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  conceive  how  benighted  and  isolated 
was  the  condition  of  the  community  at  Pigeon  Creek  in 
Indiana,  of  which  the  family  of  Lincoln's  father  formed 
a  part,  or  how  eagerly  an  ambitious  and  high-spirited 
boy,  such  as  he,  must  have  yearned  to  escape.  The  first 
glimpse  that  he  ever  got  of  any  world  beyond  the  nar- 
row confines  of  his  home  was  in  1828,  at  the  age  of 
nineteen,  when  a  neighbor  employed  him  to  accompany 
his  son  down  the  river  to  New  Orleans  to  dispose  of  a 
flat-boat  of  produce  —  a  commission  which  he  discharged 
with  great  success. 

Shortly  after  his  return  from  this  his  first  excursion 
into  the  outer  world,  his  father,  tired  of  failure  in  In- 
diana, packed  his  family  and  all  his  worldly  goods  into 
a  single  wagon  drawn  by  two  yoke  of  oxen,  and  after  a 
fourteen  days'  tramp  through  the  wilderness,  pitched 
his  camp  once  more  in  Illinois.  Here  Abraham,  having 
come  of  age  and  being  now  his  own  master,  rendered  the 
last  service  of  his  minority  by  ploughing  the  fifteen-acre 
lot  and  splitting  from  the  tall  wain  at  trees  of  the  pri- 
meval forest  enough  rails  to  surround  the  little  clearing 
with  a  fence.  Such  was  the  meagre  outfit  of  this  coming 
leader  of  men,  at  the  age  when  the  future  British  Prime 
Minister  or  statesman  emerges  from  the  university  as 
a  double  first  or  senior  wrangler,  with  every  advantage 
that  high  training  and  broad  culture  and  association 
with  the  wisest  and  the  best  of  men  and  women  can 
give,  and  enters  upon  some  form  of  public  service  on 
the  road  to  usefulness  and  honor,  the  University  course 
being  only  the  first  stage  of  the  public  training.  So 
Lincoln,  at  twenty-one,  had  just  begun  his  preparation 
for  the  public  life  to  which  he  soon  began  to  aspire. 
For  some  years  yet  he  must  continue  to  earn  his  daily 


10  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

bread  by  tlie  sweat  of  his  brow,  having  absolutely 
no  means,  no  home,  no  friend  to  consult.  More  farm 
work  as  a  hired  hand,  a  clerkship  in  a  village  store, 
the  running  of  a  mill,  another  trip  to  New  Orleans  on  a 
flat-boat  of  his  own  contriving,  a  pilot's  berth  on  the 
river  —  these  were  the  means  by  which  he  subsisted 
until,  in  the  summer  of  1832,  when  he  was  twenty-three 
years  of  age,  an  event  occurred  which  gave  him  public 
recognition. 

The  Black  Hawk  War  broke  out,  and  the  Governor  of 
Illinois  calling  for  volunteers  to  repel  the  band  of  sav- 
ages whose  leader  bore  that  name,  Lincoln  enlisted  and 
was  elected  captain  by  his  comrades,  among  whom  he 
had  already  established  his  supremacy  by  signal  feats 
of  strength  and  more  than  one  successful  single  combat. 
During  the  brief  hostilities  he  was  engaged  in  no  battle 
and  won  no  military  glory,  but  his  local  leadership  was 
established.  The  same  year  he  offered  himself  as  a  can- 
didate for  the  Legislature  of  Illinois,  but  failed  at  the 
polls.  Yet  his  vast  popularity  with  those  who  knew 
him  was  manifest.  The  district  consisted  of  several 
councies,  but  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  people  of  his 
own  county  was  for  Lincoln.  Another  unsuccessful  at- 
tempt at  store-keeping  was  followed  by  better  luck  at 
surveying,  until  his  horse  and  instruments  were  levied 
upon  under  execution  for  the  debts  of  his  business  ad- 
venture. 

I  have  been  thus  detailed  in  sketching  his  early  years 
because  upon  these  strange  foundations  the  structure  of 
his  great  fame  and  service  was  built.  In  the  place  of  a 
school  and  university  training  fortune  substituted  these 
trials,  hardships,  and  struggles  as  a  preparation  for  the 
great  work  which  he  had  to  do.  It  turned  out  to  be 
exactly  what  the  emergency  required.     Ten  years  instead 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  11 

at  the  public  school  and  the  university  certainly  never 
could  have  fitted  this  man  for  the  unique  work  which 
was  to  be  thrown  upon  him.  Some  other  Moses  would 
have  had  to  lead  us  to  our  Jordan,  to  the  sight  of  our 
promised  land  of  liberty. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  became  a  member  of  the 
Legislature  of  Illinois,  and  so  continued  for  eight  years, 
and,  in  the  meantime,  qualified  himself  by  reading  such 
law  books  as  he  could  borrow  at  random  —  for  he  was 
too  poor  to  buy  any  —  to  be  called  to  the  Bar.  For  his 
second  quarter  of  a  century  —  during  which  a  single 
term  in  Congress  introduced  him  into  the  arena  of 
national  questions  —  he  gave  himself  up  to  law  and 
politics.  In  spite  of  his  soaring  ambition,  his  two  years 
in  Congress  gave  him  no  premonition  of  the  great  destiny 
that  awaited  him,  and  at  its  close,  in  1849,  we  find  him 
an  unsuccessful  applicant  to  the  President  for  appoint- 
ment as  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office  —  a 
purely  administrative  Bureau ;  a  fortunate  escape  for 
himself  and  for  his  country.  Year  by  year  his  knowl- 
edge and  power,  his  experience  and  reputation  extended, 
and  his  mental  faculties  seemed  to  grow  by  what  they 
fed  on.  His  power  of  persuasion,  which  had  always 
been  marked,  was  developed  to  an  extraordinary  degree, 
now  that  he  became  engaged  in  congenial  questions  and 
subjects.  Little  by  little  he  rose  to  prominence  at  the 
Bar,  and  became  the  most  effective  public  speaker  in  the 
West.  Not  that  he  possessed  any  of  the  graces  of  the 
orator;  but  his  logic  was  invincible,  and  his  clearness 
and  force  of  statement  impressed  upon  his  hearers  the 
convictions  of  his  honest  mind,  vfhile  his  broad  sympa- 
thies and  sparkling  and  genial  humor  made  him  a  uni- 
versal favorite  as  far  and  as  fast  as  his  acquaintance 
ei^tended. 


12  ABRAUAM   LINCOLN. 

These  twenty  years  that  elapsed  from  the  time  of  his 
establishment  as  a  lawyer  and  legislator  in  Springfield, 
the  new  capital  of  Illinois,  furnished  a  fitting  theatre  for 
the  development  and  display  of  his  great  faculties,  and, 
with  his  new  and  enlarged  opportunities,  he  obviously 
grew  in  mental  stature  in  this  second  period  of  his  career, 
as  if  to  compensate  for  the  absolute  lack  of  advantages 
under  which  he  had  suffered  in  youth.  As  his  powers 
enlarged,  his  reputation  extended,  for  he  was  always 
before  the  people,  felt  a  warm  sympathy  with  all  that 
concerned  them,  took  a  zealous  part  in  the  discussion  of 
every  public  question,  and  made  his  personal  influence 
ever  more  widely  and  deeply  felt. 

My  brethren  of  the  legal  profession  will  naturally  ask 
me,  how  could  this  rough  backwoodsman,  whose  youth 
had  been  spent  in  the  forest  or  on  the  farm  and  the  flat- 
boat,  without  culture  or  training,  education  or  study,  by 
the  random  reading,  on  the  wing,  of  a  few  miscellaneous 
law  books,  become  a  learned  and  accomplished  lawyer  ? 
Well,  he  never  did.  lie  never  would  have  earned  his  salt 
as  a  Writer  for  the  Signet,  nor  have  won  a  place  as  advo- 
cate in  the  Court  of  Session,  where  the  technique  of  the 
profession  has  reached  its  highest  perfection,  and  cen- 
turies of  learning  and  precedent  are  involved  in  the 
equipment  of  a  lawyer.  Dr.  Holmes,  when  asked  by  an 
anxious  young  mother,  "  When  should  the  education  of 
a  child  begin  ?  "  replied,  "  Madam,  at  least  two  centuries 
before  it  is  born ! "  and  so  I  am  sure  it  is  with  the  Scots 
lawyer. 

But  not  so  in  Illinois  in  1840.  Between  1830  and  1880 
its  population  increased  twenty-fold,  and  when  Lincoln 
began  practising  law  in  Springfield  in  1837,  life  in  Illi- 
nois was  very  crude  and  simple,  and  so  were  the  courts 
and  the  administration  of  justice.     Books  and  libraries 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN,  13 

were  scarce.  But  the  people  loved  justice,  upheld  the 
law,  and  followed  the  courts,  and  soon  found  their  favor- 
ites among  the  advocates.  The  fundamental  principles 
of  the  common  law,  as  set  forth  by  Blackstone  and 
Chitty,  were  not  so  difficult  to  acquire  ;  and  brains,  com- 
mon sense,  force  of  character,  tenacity  of  purpose,  ready 
wit  and  power  of  speech  did  the  rest,  and  supplied  all  the 
deficiencies  of  learning. 

The  lawsuits  of  those  days  were  extremely  simple,  and 
the  principles  of  natural  justice  were  mainly  relied  on  to 
dispose  of  them  at  the  Bar  and  on  the  Bench,  without 
resort  to  technical  learning.  Railroads,  corporations  ab- 
sorbing the  chief  business  of  the  community,  combined 
and  inherited  wealth,  with  all  the  subtle  and  intricate 
questions  they  breed,  had  not  yet  come  in  —  and  so  the 
professional  agents  and  the  equipment  which  they  re- 
quire were  not  needed.  But  there  were  many  highly 
educated  and  powerful  men  at  the  Bar  of  Illinois,  even 
in  those  early  days,  whom  the  spirit  of  enterprise  had 
carried  there  in  search  of  fame  and  fortune.  It  was  by 
constant  contact  and  conflict  with  these  that  Lincoln 
acquired  professional  strength  and  skill.  Every  commu- 
nity and  every  age  creates  its  own  Bar,  entirely  adequate 
for  its  present  uses  and  necessities.  So  in  Illinois,  as  the 
population  and  wealth  of  the  State  kept  on  doubling  and 
quadrupling,  its  Bar  presented  a  growing  abundance  of 
learning  and  science  and  technical  skill.  The  early  prac- 
titioners grew  with  its  growth  and  mastered  the  requisite 
knowledge.  Chicago  soon  grew  to  be  one  of  the  largest 
and  richest  and  certainly  the  most  intensely  active  city  on 
the  continent,  and  if  any  of  my  professional  friends  here 
had  gone  there  in  Lincoln's  later  years,  to  try  or  argue  a 
cause,  or  transact  other  business,  with  any  idea  that 
Edinburgh  or  London  had  a  monopoly  of  legal  learning, 


14  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

science,  or   subtlety,  they  would  certainly  have  founa 
their  mistake. 

In  those  early  clays  in  the  West,  every  lawyer,  especi- 
ally every  court  lawyer,  was  necessarily  a  politician, 
constantly  engaged  in  the  public  discussion  of  the  many 
questions  evolved  from  the  rapid  development  of  town, 
county,  State,  and  Federal  affairs.  Then  and  there,  in 
this  regard,  public  discussion  supplied  the  place  which 
the  universal  activity  of  the  press  has  since  monopolized, 
and  the  public  speaker  who,  by  clearness,  force,  earnest- 
ness, and  wit,  could  make  himself  felt  on  the  questions 
of  the  day  would  rapidly  come  to  the  front.  In  the 
absence  of  that  immense  variety  of  popular  entertain- 
ments which  now  feed  the  public  taste  and  appetite,  the 
people  found  their  chief  amusement  in  frequenting  the 
courts  and  public  and  political  assemblies.  In  either 
place,  he  who  impressed,  entertained,  and  amused  them 
most  was  the  hero  of  the  hour.  They  did  not  discrimi- 
nate very  carefully  between  the  eloquence  of  the  forum 
and  the  eloquence  of  the  hustings.  Human  nature  ruled 
in  both  alike,  and  he  who  was  the  most  effective  speaker 
in  a  political  harangue  was  often  retained  as  most  likely 
to  win  in  a  cause  to  be  tried  or  argued.  And  I  have  no 
doubt  in  this  way  many  retainers  came  to  Lincoln.  Fees, 
money  in  any  form,  had  no  charms  for  him  —  in  his 
eager  pursuit  of  fame  he  could  not  aiford  to  make 
money.  He  was  ambitious  to  distinguish  himself  by 
some  great  service  to  mankind,  and  this  ambition  for 
fame  and  real  public  service  left  no  room  for  avarice  in 
his  composition.  However  much  he  earned,  he  seems  to 
have  ended  every  year  hardly  richer  than  he  began  it, 
and  yet  as  the  years  passed,  fees  came  to  him  freely. 
One  of  £1,000  is  recorded  —  a  very  large  professional 
fee  at  that  time,  even  in  any  part  of  America,  the  para- 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  15 

dise  of  lawyers.  I  lay  great  stress  on  Lincoln's  career 
as  a  lawyer  —  much  more  than  his  biographers  do  — 
because  in  America  a  state  of  things  exists  wholly  dif- 
ferent from  that  which  prevails  in  Great  Britain.  The 
profession  of  the  law  always  has  been  —  and  is  to 
this  day  —  the  principal  avenue  to  public  life  ;  and  I 
am  sure  that  his  training  and  experience  in  the  courts 
had  much  to  do  with  the  development  of  those  forces  of 
intellect  and  character  which  he  soon  displayed  on  a 
broader  arena. 

It  was  in  political  controversy,  of  course,  that  he 
acquired  his  wide  reputation,  and  made  his  deep  and 
lasting  impression  upon  the  people  of  what  had  now  be- 
come the  powerful  State  of  Illinois,  and  upon  the  people 
of  the  Great  West,  to  whom  the  political  power  and  con- 
trol of  the  United  States  were  already  surely  and  swiftly 
passing  from  the  older  Eastern  States.  It  was  this  repu- 
tation and  this  impression  and  the  familiar  knowledge  of 
his  character  which  had  come  to  them  from  his  local 
leadership,  that  happily  inspired  the  people  of  the  West 
to  present  him  as  their  candidate,  and  to  press  him  upon 
the  Eepublican  convention  of  1860  as  the  fit  and  neces- 
sary leader  in  the  struggle  for  life  which  was  before  the 
nation. 

That  struggle,  as  you  all  know,  arose  out  of  the  ter- 
rible question  of  Slavery  —  and  I  must  trust  to  your 
general  knowledge  of  the  history  of  that  question  to 
make  intelligible  the  attitude  and  leadership  of  Lincoln 
as  the  champion  of  the  hosts  of  freedom  in  the  final 
contest.  Negro  slavery  had  been  firmly  established  in 
the  Southern  States  from  an  early  period  of  their  his- 
tory. In  1619,  the  year  before  the  "  Mayflower  "  landed 
our  Pilgrim  Fathers  upon  Plymouth  Eock,  a  Dutch  ship 
had  discharged  a  cargo  of  African  slaves  at  Jamestown 


16  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

in  Virginia.  All  through  the  colonial  period  their  im- 
portation had  continued.  A  few  had  found  their  way 
into  the  Northern  States,  but  in  none  of  them  in  suffi- 
cient numbers  to  constitute  danger  or  to  afford  a  basis 
for  political  power.  At  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  prin- 
cipal members  of  the  Convention  not  only  condemned 
slavery  as  a  moral,  social,  and  political  evil,  but  believed 
that  by  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade  it  was  in  the 
course  of  gradual  extinction  in  the  South,  as  it  certainly 
was  in  the  North.  Washington,  in  his  will,  provided 
for  the  emancipation  of  his  own  slaves,  and  said  to 
Jefferson  that  it  "  was  among  his  first  wishes  to  see 
some  plan  adopted  by  which  slavery  in  his  country 
might  be  abolished."  Jefferson  said,  referring  to  the 
institution :  "I  tremble  for  my  country  when  I  think 
that  God  is  just;  that  His  justice  cannot  sleep  forever,'* 
—  and  Franklin,  Adams,  Hamilton,  and  Patrick  Henry 
were  all  utterly  opposed  to  it.  But  it  was  made  the 
subject  of  a  fatal  compromise  in  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion, whereby  its  existence  was  recognized  in  the  States 
as  a  basis  of  representation,  the  prohibition  of  the  im- 
portation of  slaves  was  postponed  for  twenty  years,  and 
the  return  of  fugitive  slaves  provided  for.  But  no 
imminent  danger  was  apprehended  from  it  till,  by  the 
invention  of  the  cotton  gin  in  1792,  cotton  culture  by 
negro  labor  became  at  once  and  forever  the  leading  in- 
dustry of  the  South,  and  gave  a  new  impetus  to  the 
importation  of  slaves,  so  that  in  1808,  when  the  consti- 
tutional prohibition  took  effect,  their  numbers  had 
vastly  increased.  From  that  time  forward  slavery  be- 
came the  basis  of  a  great  political  power,  and  the  South- 
ern States,  under  all  circumstances  and  at  every  oppor- 
tunity, carried  on  a  brave  and  unrelenting  struggle  for 
its  maintenance  and  extension. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN,  17 

The  conscience "  of  the  North  was  slow  to  rise  against 
it,  though  bitter  controversies  from  time  to  time  took 
place.  The  Southern  leaders  threatened  disunion  if 
their  demands  were  not  complied  with.  To  save  the 
Union,  compromise  after  compromise  was  made ;  but 
each  one  in  the  end  was  broken.  The  Missouri  Com- 
promise, made  in  1820  upon  the  occasion  of  the  ad- 
mission of  Missouri  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State,  — > 
whereby,  in  consideration  of  such  admission,  slavery  was 
forever  excluded  from  the  Northwest  Territory,  —  was 
ruthlessly  repealed  in  1854,  by  a  Congress  elected  in  the 
interests  of  the  slave  power,  the  intent  being  to  force 
slavery  into  that  vast  territory  which  had  so  long  been 
dedicated  to  freedom.  This  challenge  at  last  aroused 
the  slumbering  conscience  and  passion  of  the  North,  and 
led  to  the  formation  of  the  Republican  party  for  the 
avowed  purpose  of  preventing,  by  constitutional  methods, 
the  further  extension  of  slavery. 

In  its  first  campaign  in  1856,  though  it  failed  to  elect 
its  candidates,  it  received  a  surprising  vote  and  carried 
many  of  the  States.  No  one  could  any  longer  doubt  that 
the  North  had  made  up  its  mind  that  no  threats  of  dis- 
union should  deter  it  from  pressing  its  cherished  purpose 
and  performing  its  long  neglected  duty.  From  the  out- 
set, Lincoln  was  one  of  the  most  active  and  effective 
leaders  and  speakers  of  the  new  party,  and  the  great  de- 
bates between  Lincoln  and  Douglas  in  1858,  as  the  re- 
spective champions  of  the  restriction  and  extension  of 
slavery,  attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole  country. 
Lincoln's  powerful  arguments  carried  conviction  every- 
where. His  moral  nature  was  thoroughly  aroused  —  his 
conscience  Avas  stirred  to  the  quick.  Unless  slavery  was 
wrong,  nothing  was  wrong.  Was  each  man,  of  whatever 
color,  entitled  to  the  fruits  of  his  own  labor,  or  could  one 


18  ABBAHAM   LINCOLN, 

man  live  in  idle  luxury  by  the  sweat  of  another's  brow, 
whose  skin  was  darker  ?  He  was  an  implicit  believer  in 
that  principle  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  that 
all  men  are  vested  with  certain  inalienable  rights  —  the 
equal  rights  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 
On  this  doctrine  he  staked  his  case  and  carried  it.  We 
have  time  only  for  one  or  two  sentences  in  which  he 
struck  the  keynote  of  the  contest: 

"  The  real  issue  in  this  country  is  the  eternal  struggle 
between  these  two  principles  —  right  and  wrong  — 
throughout  the  world.  They  are  the  two  principles 
that  have  stood  face  to  face  from  the  beginning  of  time, 
and  will  ever  continue  to  struggle.  The  one  is  the  com- 
mon right  of  humanity,  and  the  other  the  divine  right  of 
kings.  It  is  the  same  principle  in  whatever  shape  it  de- 
velops itself.  It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says,  '  You  work 
and  toil  and  earn  bread  and  I  '11  eat  it.' " 

He  foresaw  with  unerring  vision  that  the  conflict  was 
inevitable  and  irrepressible  —  that  one  or  the  other,  the 
right  or  the  wrong,  freedom  or  slavery,  must  ultimately 
prevail  and  wholly  prevail,  throughout  the  country ;  and 
this  was  the  principle  that  carried  the  war,  once  begun, 
to  a  finish. 

One  sentence  of  his  is  immortal : 

"  Under  the  operation  of  the  policy  of  compromise,  the 
slavery  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but  has  con- 
stantly augmented.  In  my  opinion  it  will  not  cease  until 
a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed.  '  A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.'  I  believe  this  gov- 
ernment cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half 
free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved.  I  do 
not  expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease 
to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the 
other  J  either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  19 

further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind 
shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it 
shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as 
new,  North  as  well  as  South/' 

During  the  entire  decade  from  1850  to  1860  the  agi- 
tation of  the  slavery  question  was  at  the  boiling  point, 
and  events  which  have  become  historical  continually 
indicated  the  near  approach  of  the  overwhelming  storm. 
No  sooner  had  the  Compromise  Acts  of  1850  resulted  in 
a  temporary  peace,  which  everybody  said  must  be  final 
and  perpetual,  than  new  outbreaks  came.  The  forcible 
carrying  away  of  fugitive  slaves  by  Federal  troops  from 
Boston  agitated  that  ancient  stronghold  of  freedom  to 
its  foundations.  The  publication  of  ''Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,"  which  truly  exposed  the  frightful  possibilities 
of  the  slave  system  ;  the  reckless  attempts  by  force  and 
fraud  to  establish  it  in  Kansas  against  the  will  of  the 
vast  majority  of  the  settlers  ;  the  beating  of  Sumner  in 
the  Senate  Chamber  for  words  spoken  in  debate ;  the 
Dred  Scott  decision  in  the  Supreme  Court,  which  made 
the  nation  realize  that  the  slave  power  had  at  last 
reached  the  fountain  of  Federal  justice;  and  finally 
the  execution  of  John  Brown,  for  his  wild  raid  into 
Virginia,  to  invite  the  slaves  to  rally  to  the  standard  of 
freedom  which  he  unfurled :  —  all  these  events  tend  to 
illustrate  and  confirm  Lincoln's  contention  that  the 
nation  could  not  permanently  continue  half  slave  and 
half  free,  but  must  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the 
other.  When  John  Brown  lay  under  sentence  of  death 
he  declared  that  now  he  was  sure  that  slavery  must  be 
wiped  out  in  blood  ;  but  neither  he  nor  his  executioners 
dreamt  that  within  four  years  a  million  soldiers  would 
be  marching  across  the  country  for  its  final  extirpation, 
to  the  music  of  the  war-song  of  the  great  conflict : 


20  ABBAHAM   LINCOLN. 

"  John  Brown's  body  lies  a-mouldering  in  the  grave, 
But  his  soul  is  marcliing  on." 

And  now,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one,  this  child  of  the 
wilderness,  this  farm  laborer,  rail-splitter,  flat-boatman 
—  this  surveyor,  lawyer,  orator,  stateman,  and  patriot, 
found  himself  elected  by  the  great  party  which  was 
pledged  to  prevent  at  all  hazards  the  further  extension 
of  slavery,  as  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  Republic, 
bound  to  carry  out  that  purpose,  to  be  the  leader  and 
ruler  of  the  nation  in  its  most  trying  hour. 

Those  who  believe  that  there  is  a  living  Providence 
that  overrules  and  conducts  the  affairs  of  nations,  find 
in  the  elevation  of  this  plain  man  to  this  extraordinary 
fortune  and  to  this  great  duty  which  he  so  fitly  dis- 
charged, a  signal  vindication  of  their  faith.  Perhaps  to 
this  philosophical  institution  the  judgment  of  our  philoso- 
pher Emerson  will  commend  itself  as  a  just  estimate  of 
Lincoln's  historical  place : 

"  His  occupying  the  chair  of  state  was  a  triumph  of 
the  good  sense  of  mankind  and  of  the  public  conscience. 
He  grew  according  to  the  need ;  his  mind  mastered  the 
problem  of  the  day  :  and  as  the  problem  grew,  so  did  his 
comprehension  of  it.  In  the  war  there  was  no  place  for 
holiday  magistrate,  nor  fair  weather  sailor.  The  new 
pilot  was  hurried  to  the  helm  in  a  tornado.  In  four 
years  —  four  years  of  battle  days  —  his  endurance,  his 
fertility  of  resource,  his  magnanimity,  were  sorely  tried, 
and  never  found  wanting.  There,  by  his  courage,  his 
justice,  his  even  temper,  his  fertile  counsel,  his  humanity, 
he  stood  a  heroic  figure  in  the  centre  of  a  heroic  epoch. 
He  is  the  true  history  of  the  American  people  in  his 
time,  the  true  representative  of  this  continent  —  father 
of  his  country,  the  pulse  of  twenty  millions  throbbing 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  21 

in  his  heart,  the  thought  of  their  mind  articulated  in  his 
tongue." 

He  was  born  great,  as  distinguished  from  those  who 
achieve  greatness  or  have  it  thrust  upon  them,  and  his 
inherent  capacity,  mental,  moral,  and  physical,  having 
been  recognized  by  the  educated  intelligence  of  a  free 
people,  they  happily  chose  him  for  their  ruler  in  a  day 
of  deadly  peril. 

It  is  now  forty  years  since  I  first  saw  and  heard  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  but  the  impression  which  he  left  on  my 
mind  is  ineffaceable.  After  his  great  successes  in  the 
West  he  came  to  New  York  to  make  a  political  address. 
He  appeared  in  every  sense  of  the  word  like  one  of  the 
plain  people  among  whom  he  loved  to  be  counted.  At 
first  sight  there  was  nothing  impressive  or  imposing 
about  him  —  except  that  his  great  stature  singled  him 
out  from  the  crowd  ;  his  clothes  hung  awkwardly  on  his 
giant  frame,  his  face  was  of  a  dark  pallor,  without  the 
slightest  tinge  of  color ;  his  seamed  and  rugged  features 
bore  the  furrows  of  hardship  and  struggle ;  his  deep-set 
eyes  looked  sad  and  anxious  ;  his  countenance  in  repose 
gave  little  evidence  of  that  brain  power  which  had  raised 
him  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  station  among  his 
countrymen ;  as  he  talked  to  me  before  the  meeting,  he 
seemed  ill  at  ease,  with  that  sort  of  apprehension  which 
a  young  man  might  feel  before  presenting  himself  to  a 
new  and  strange  audience,  whose  critical  disposition  he 
dreaded.  It  was  a  great  audience,  including  all  the 
noted  men  —  all  the  learned  and  cultured  —  of  his  party 
in  New  York:  editors,  clergymen,  statesmen,  lawyers 
merchants,  critics.  They  were  all  very  curious  to  hear 
him.  His  fame  as  a  powerful  speaker  had  preceded 
him,  and  exaggerated  rumor  of  his  wit  —  the  worst  fore- 
runner of  an  orator  —  had  reached  the  East.     When  Mr. 


22  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Bryant  presented  him,  on  tlie  high  platform  of  the 
Cooper  Institute,  a  vast  sea  of  eager  upturned  faces 
greeted  him,  full  of  intense  curiosity  to  see  what  this 
rude  child  of  the  people  was  like.  He  was  equal  to  the 
occasion.  When  he  spoke  he  was  transformed ;  his  eye 
kindled,  his  voice  rang,  his  face  shone  and  seemed  to 
light  up  the  whole  assembly.  For  an  hour  and  a  half  he 
held  his  audience  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand.  His  style 
of  speech  and  manner  of  delivery  were  severely  simple. 
What  Lowell  called  "  The  grand  simplicities  of  the 
Bible,'^  with  which  he  was  so  familiar,  were  reflected  in 
his  discourse.  With  no  attempt  at  ornament  or  rhetoric, 
without  parade  or  pretence,  he  spoke  straight  to  the 
point.  If  any  came  expecting  the  turgid  eloquence  or 
the  ribaldry  of  the  frontier,  they  must  have  been  startled 
at  the  earnest  and  sincere  purity  of  his  utterances.  It 
was  marvellous  to  see  how  this  untutored  man,  by  mere 
self  discipline  and  the  chastening  of  his  own  spirit,  had 
outgrown  all  meretricious  arts,  and  found  his  own  way 
to  the  grandeur  and  strength  of  absolute  simplicity. 

He  spoke  upon  the  theme  which  he  had  mastered  so 
thoroughly.  He  demonstrated  by  copious  historical 
proofs  and  masterly  logic  that  the  fathers  who  created 
the  Constitution  in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  union, 
to  establish  justice,  and  to  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty 
to  themselves  and  their  posterity,  intended  to  empower 
the  Federal  Government  to  exclude  slavery  from  the 
territories.  In  the  kindliest  spirit  he  protested  against 
the  avowed  threat  of  the  Southern  States  to  destroy  the 
Union  if,  in  order  to  secure  freedom  in  those  vast 
regions  out  of  which  future  States  were  to  be  carved,  a 
Eepublican  President  were  elected.  He  closed  with  an 
appeal  to  his  audience,  spoken  with  all  the  fire  of  his 
aroused  and  kindling  conscience,  with  a  full  outpouring 


ABBAHAM   LINCOLN.  23 

of  his  love  of  justice  and  liberty,  to  maintain  their 
political  purpose  on  that  lofty  and  unassailable  issue  of 
right  and  wrong  which  alone  could  justify  it,  and  not  to 
be  intimidated  from  their  high  resolve  and  sacred  duty 
by  any  threats  of  destruction  to  the  government  or  of 
ruin  to  themselves.  He  concluded  with  this  telling 
sentence,  which  drove  the  whole  argument  home  to  all 
our  hearts  :  '^  Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might, 
and  in  that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  dare  to  do  our  duty 
as  we  understand  it."  That  night  the  great  hall,  and 
the  next  day  the  whole  city,  rang  with  delighted  ap- 
plause and  congratulations,  and  he  who  had  come  as  a 
stranger  departed  with  the  laurels  of  a  great  triumph. 

Alas  !  in  five  years  from  that  exulting  night  I  saw 
him  again,  for  the  last  time,  in  the  same  city,  borne  in 
his  coffin  through  its  draped  streets.  With  tears  and 
lamentations  a  heart-broken  people  accompanied  him 
from  Washington,  the  scene  of  his  martyrdom,  to  his 
last  resting-place  in  the  young  city  of  the  West,  where 
he  had  worked  his  way  to  fame. 

Never  was  a  new  ruler  in  a  more  desperate  plight  than 
Lincoln  when  he  entered  office  on  the  fourth  of  March, 
1861,  four  months  after  his  election,  and  took  his  oath 
to  support  the  Constitution  and  the  Union.  The  inter- 
vening time  had  been  busily  employed  by  the  Southern 
States  in  carrying  out  their  threat  of  disunion  in  the 
event  of  his  election.  As  soon  as  the  fact  was  ascer- 
tained, seven  of  them  had  seceded  and  had  seized  upon 
the  forts,  arsenals,  navy  yards,  and  other  public  property 
of  the  United  States  within  their  boundaries,  and  were 
making  every  preparation  for  war.  In  the  meantime 
the  retiring  President,  who  had  been  elected  by  the 
slave  power,  and  who  thought  the  seceding  States  could 
not  lawfully  be  coerced,  had  done  absolutely  nothing. 


24  ABBAIIAM   LINCOLN. 

Lincoln  found  himself,  by  the  Constitution,  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States, 
but  with  only  a  remnant  of  either  at  hand.  Each  was 
to  be  created  on  a  great  scale  out  of  the  unknown  re- 
sources of  a  nation  untried  in  war. 

In  his  mild  and  conciliatory  inaugural  address,  while 
appealing  to  the  seceding  States  to  return  to  their  allegi- 
ance, he  avowed  his  purpose  to  keep  the  solemn  oath  he 
had  taken  that  day,  to  see  that  the  laws  of  the  Union  were 
faithfully  executed,  and  to  use  the  troops  to  recover  the 
forts,  navy  yards,  and  other  property  belonging  to  the 
government.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  neither  side 
actually  realized  that  war  was  inevitable,  and  that  the 
other  was  determined  to  fight,  until  the  assault  on  Fort 
Sumter  presented  the  South  as  the  first  aggressor  and 
roused  the  North  to  use  every  possible  resource  to  main- 
tain the  government  and  the  imperilled  Union,  and  to 
vindicate  the  supremacy  of  the  flag  over  every  inch  of 
the  territory  of  the  United  States.  The  fact  that 
Lincoln's  first  proclamation  called  for  only  75,000  troops, 
to  serve  for  three  months,  shows  how  inadequate  was 
even  his  idea  of  what  the  future  had  in  store.  But  from 
that  moment  Lincoln  and  his  loyal  supporters  never 
faltered  in  their  purpose.  They  knew  they  could  win, 
that  it  was  their  duty  to  win,  and  that  for  America  the 
whole  hope  of  the  future  depended  upon  their  winning, 
for  now  by  the  acts  of  the  seceding  States  the  issue  of 
the  election  —  to  secure  or  prevent  the  extension  of 
slavery  —  stood  transformed  into  a  struggle  to  preserve 
or  to  destroy  the  Union. 

We  cannot  follow  this  contest.  You  know  its  gigantic 
proportions ;  that  it  lasted  four  years  instead  of  three 
months  ;  that  in  its  progress,  instead  of  75,000  men,  more 
than  2,000,000  were  enrolled  on  the  side  of  the  govern- 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  25 

ment  alone;  that  the  aggregate  cost  and  loss  to  the 
nation  approximated  to  1,000,000,000  pounds  sterling, 
and  that  not  less  than  300,000  brave  and  precious  lives 
were  sacrificed  on  each  side.  History  has  recorded  how- 
Lincoln  bore  himself  during  these  four  frightful  years ; 
that  he  was  the  real  President,  the  responsible  and  actual 
head  of  the  government,  through  it  all ;  that  he  listened 
to  all  advice,  heard  all  parties,  and  then,  always  realizing 
his  responsibility  to  God  and  the  nation,  decided  every 
great  executive  question  for  himself.  His  absolute 
honesty  had  become  proverbial  long  before  he  was  Presi- 
dent. "  Honest  Abe  Lincoln  '^  was  the  name  by  which 
he  had  been  known  for  years.     His  every  act  attested  it. 

In  all  the  grandeur  of  the  vast  power  that  he  wielded, 
he  never  ceased  to  be  one  of  the  plain  people,  as  he 
always  called  them,  never  lost  or  impaired  his  perfect 
sympathy  with  them,  was  always  in  perfect  touch  with 
them  and  open  to  their  appeals ;  and  here  lay  the  very 
secret  of  his  personality  and  of  his  power,  for  the  people 
in  turn  gave  him  their  absolute  confidence.  His  courage, 
his  fortitude,  his  patience,  his  hopefulness,  were  sorely 
tried  but  never  exhausted. 

He  was  true  as  steel  to  his  generals,  but  had  frequent 
occasion  to  change  them,  as  he  found  them  inadequate. 
This  serious  and  painful  duty  rested  wholly  upon  him, 
and  was  perhaps  his  most  important  function  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief;  but  when,  at  last,  he  recognized  in 
General  Grant  the  master  of  the  situation,  the  man  who 
could  and  would  bring  the  war  to  a  triumphant  end,  he 
gave  it  all  over  to  him  and  upheld  him  with  all  his 
might.  Amid  all  the  pressure  and  distress  that  the  bur- 
dens of  office  brought  upon  him,  his  unfailing  sense  of 
humor  saved  him ;  probably  it  made  it  possible  for  him 
to  live  under  the  burden.     He   had  always   been    the 


26  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

great  story-teller  of  the  West,  and  he  used  and  culti- 
vated this  faculty  to  relieve  the  weight  of  the  load  he 
bore. 

It  enabled  him  to  keep  the  wonderful  record  of  never 
having  lost  his  temper,  no  matter  what  agony  he  had  to 
bear.  A  whole  night  might  be  spent  in  recounting  the 
stories  of  his  wit,  humor,  and  harmless  sarcasm.  But  I 
will  recall  only  two  of  his  sayings,  both  about  General 
Grant,  who  always  found  plenty  of  enemies  and  critics 
to  urge  the  President  to  oust  him  from  his  command. 
One,  I  am  sure,  will  interest  all  Scotchmen.  They  re- 
peated with  malicious  intent  the  gossip  that  Grant  drank. 
"  What  does  he  drink  ?  "  asked  Lincoln.  "  Whiskey,'^ 
was,  of  course,  the  answer ;  doubtless  you  can  guess  the 
brand.  "Well,"  said  the  President,  "just  find  out 
what  particular  kind  he  uses  and  I  '11  send  a  barrel  to 
each  of  my  other  generals."  The  other  must  be  as 
pleasing  to  the  British  as  to  the  American  ear.  When 
pressed  again  on  other  grounds  to  get  rid  of  Grant,  he 
declared,  "  I  can't  spare  that  man,  he  fights  ! " 

He  was  tender-hearted  to  a  fault,  and  never  could 
resist  the  appeals  of  wives  and  mothers  of  soldiers  who 
had  got  into  trouble,  and  were  under  sentence  of  death 
for  their  offences.  His  Secretary  of  War  and  other 
officials  complained  that  they  never  could  get  deserters 
shot.  As  surely  as  the  women  of  the  culprit's  family 
could  get  at  him  he  always  gave  way.  Certainly  you 
will  all  appreciate  his  exquisite  sympathy  with  the 
sufferinf?  relatives  of  those  who  had  fallen  in  battle. 
His  heart  bled  with  theirs.  Never  was  there  a  more 
gentle  and  tender  utterance  than  his  letter  to  a  mother 
who  had  given  all  her  sons  to  her  country,  written  at  a 
time  when  the  angel  of  death  had  visited  almost  every 
household  in  the  land,  and  was  already  hovering  over  him. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  27 

"  I  have  been  shown,"  he  says,  "  in  the  files  of  the  War 
Department  a  statement  that  you  are  the  mother  of  five 
sons  who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle.  I 
feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any  words  of  mine 
which  should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from  your  grief  for 
a  loss  so  overwhelming — but  I  cannot  refrain  from  ten- 
dering to  you  the  consolation  which  may  be  found  in 
the  thanks  of  the  Republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray 
that  our  Heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the  anguish  of 
your  bereavement  and  leave  you  only  the  cherished  mem- 
ory of  the  loved  and  the  lost,  and  the  solemn  pride  that 
must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the 
altar  of  freedom." 

Hardly  could  your  illustrious  sovereign,  from  the 
depths  of  her  queenly  and  womanly  heart,  have  spoken 
words  more  touching  and  tender  to  soothe  the  stricken 
mothers  of  her  own  soldiers. 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation,  with  which  Mr.  Lin- 
coln delighted  the  country  and  the  world  on  the  first  of 
January,  1863,  will  doubtless  secure  for  him  a  foremost 
place  in  history  among  the  philanthropists  and  benefac- 
tors of  the  race,  as  it  rescued,  from  hopeless  and  degrading 
slavery,  so  many  millions  of  his  fellow  beings  described 
in  the  law  and  existing  in  fact  as  "  chattels-personal,  in 
the  hands  of  their  owners  and  possessors,  to  all  intents, 
constructions,  and  purposes  whatsoever."  Rarely  does 
the  happy  fortune  come  to  one  man  to  render  such  a  ser- 
vice to  his  kind  —  to  proclaim  liberty  throughout  the 
land  unto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof. 

Ideas  rule  the  world,  and  never  was  there  a  more 
signal  instance  of  this  triumph  of  an  idea  than  here. 
William  Lloyd  Garrison,  who  thirty  years  before  had  be- 
gun his  crusade  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  had  lived 
to  see  this  glorious  and  unexpected  consummation  of  the 


28  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN, 

hopeless  cause  to  which  he  had  devoted  his  life,  well  de- 
scribed the  proclamation  as  a  "  great  historic  event,  sub- 
lime in  its  magnitude,  momentous  and  beneficent  in  its 
far-reaching  consequences,  and  eminently  just  and  right 
alike  to  the  oppressor  and  the  oppressed." 

Lincoln  had  always  been  heart  and  soul  opposed  to 
slavery.  Tradition  says  that  on  the  trip  on  the  flat-boat 
to  New  Orleans  he  formed  his  first  and  last  opinion  of 
slavery  at  the  sight  of  negroes  chained  and  scourged,  and 
that  then  and  there  the  iron  entered  into  his  soul.  No 
boy  could  grow  to  manhood  in  those  days  as  a  poor  white 
in  Kentucky  and  Indiana,  in  close  contact  with  slavery 
or  in  its  neighborhood,  without  a  growing  consciousness 
of  its  blighting  effects  on  free  labor,  as  well  of  its  fright- 
ful injustice  and  cruelty.  In  the  Legislature  of  Illinois, 
where  the  public  sentiment  was  all  for  upholding  the 
institution  and  violently  against  every  movement  for  its 
abolition  or  restriction,  upon  the  passage  of  resolutions 
to  that  effect  he  had  the  courage  with  one  companion  to 
put  on  record  his  protest,  "  believing  that  the  institution 
of  slavery  is  founded  both  in  injustice  and  bad  policy.'' 
No  great  demonstration  of  courage,  you  will  say ;  but 
that  was  at  a  time  when  Garrison,  for  his  abolition  utter- 
ances, had  been  dragged  by  an  angry  mob  through  the 
streets  of  Boston  with  a  rope  around  his  body,  and  in  the 
very  year  that  Lovejoy  in  the  same  State  of  Illinois  was 
slain  by  rioters  while  defending  his  press,  from  which  he 
had  printed  anti-slavery  appeals. 

In  Congress  he  brought  in  a  bill  for  gradual  abolition 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  with  compensation  to  the 
owners,  —  for  until  they  raised  treasonable  hands  against 
the  life  of  the  nation  he  always  maintained  tha.t  the 
property  of  the  slave-holders,  into  which  they  had  come 
by  two  centuries  of  descent,  without  fault  on  their  part, 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  29 

ouglit  not  to  be  taken  away  from  tliem  without  just  com- 
pensation He  used  to  say  that,  one  way  or  another,  he 
had  voted  forty-two  times  for  the  Wilmot  proviso,  which 
Mr.  Wilmot  of  Pennsylvania  moved  as  an  addition  to 
every  bill  which  affected  United  States  territory,  —  "  That 
neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  shall  ever  exist 
in  any  part  of  the  said  territory,"  —  and  it  is  evident  that 
his  condemnation  of  the  system,  on  moral  grounds  as  a 
crime  against  the  human  race,  and  on  political  grounds 
as  a  cancer  that  was  sapping  the  vitals  of  the  nation,  and 
must  master  its  whole  being  or  be  itself  extirpated,  grew 
steadily  upon  him  until  it  culminated  in  his  great  speeches 
in  the  Illinois  debate. 

By  the  mere  election  of  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency,  the 
further  extension  of  slavery  into  the  territories  was  ren- 
dered forever  impossible  —  Vox  populi,  vox  Dei.  E-evo- 
lutions  never  go  backward,  and  when  founded  on  a  great 
moral  sentiment  stirring  the  heart  of  an  indignant  people 
their  edicts  are  irresistible  and  final.  Had  the  slave 
power  acquiesced  in  that  election,  had  the  Southern 
States  remained  under  the  Constitution  and  within  the 
Union,  and  relied  upon  their  constitutional  and  legal 
rights,  their  favorite  institution,  immoral  as  it  was, 
blighting  and  fatal  as  it  was,  might  have  endured  for 
another  century.  The  great  party  that  had  elected  him, 
unalterably  determined  against  its  extension,  was  never- 
theless pledged  not  to  interfere  with  its  continuance  in 
the  States  where  it  already  existed.  Of  course,  when 
new  regions  were  forever  closed  against  it,  from  its  very 
nature  it  must  have  begun  to  shrink  and  to  dwindle ;  and 
probably  gradual  and  compensated  emancipation,  which 
appealed  very  strongly  to  the  new  President's  sense  of 
justice  and  expediency,  would,  in  the  progress  of  time, 
by  a  reversion  to  the  ideas  of  the  founders  of  the  Re- 


30  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

public,  have  found  a  safe  outlet  for  botli  masters  and 
slaves.  But  whom  the  gods  wish  to  destroy  they  first 
make  mad,  and  when  seven  States,  afterwards  increased 
to  eleven,  openly  seceded  from  the  Union,  when  they 
declared  and  began  the  Avar  upon  the  nation,  and  chal- 
lenged its  mighty  power  to  the  desperate  and  protracted 
struggle  for  its  life,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  its 
authority  as  a  nation  over  its  territory,  they  gave  to 
Lincoln  and  to  freedom  the  sublime  opportunity  of 
history. 

In  his  first  inaugural  address,  when  as  yet  not  a  drop 
of  precious  blood  had  been  shed,  while  he  held  out  to 
them  the  olive  branch  in  one  hand,  in  the  other  he  pre- 
sented the  guarantees  of  the  Constitution,  and  after 
reciting  the  emphatic  resolution  of  the  Convention  that 
nominated  him,  that  the  maintenance  inviolate  of  the 
"  rights  of  the  States,  and  especially  the  right  of  each 
State  to  order  and  control  its  own  domestic  institutions 
according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusively,  is  essential 
to  that  balance  of  power  on  which  the  perfection  and 
endurance  of  our  political  fabric  depend,'^  he  reiterated 
this  sentiment,  and  declared,  with  no  mental  reservation, 
"  that  all  the  protection  which,  consistently  with  the 
Constitution  and  the  laws,  can  be  given,  will  be  cheerfully 
given  to  all  the  States  when  lawfully  demanded  for 
whatever  cause  —  as  cheerfully  to  one  section  as  to  an- 
other." 

When,  however,  these  magnanimous  overtures  for 
peace  and  reunion  were  rejected;  when  the  seceding 
States  defied  the  Constitution  and  every  clause  and 
principle  of  it ;  when  they  persisted  in  staying  out  of  the 
Union  from  which  they  had  seceded,  and  proceeded  to 
carve  out  of  its  territory  a  new  and  hostile  empire  based 
on  slavery ;  when  they  flew  at  the  throat  of  the  nation 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  31 

and  plunged  it  into  the  bloodiest  war  of  the  nineteentli 
century  —  the  tables  were  turned,  and  the  belief  gradu- 
ally came  to  the  mind  of  the  President  that  if  the  Rebel- 
lion was  not  soon  subdued  by  force  of  arms,  if  the  war 
must  be  fought  out  to  the  bitter  end,  then  to  reach  that 
end  the  salvation  of  the  nation  itself  might  require  the 
destruction  of  slavery  wherever  it  existed ;  that  if  the 
war  was  to  continue  on  one  side  for  Disunion,  for  no 
other  purpose  than  to  preserve  slavery,  it  must  continue 
on  the  other  side  for  the  Union,  to  destroy  slavery. 

As  he  said,  "  Events  control  me ;  I  cannot  control 
events,"  and  as  the  dreadful  war  progressed  and  became 
more  deadly  and  dangerous,  the  unalterable  conviction 
was  forced  upon  him  that,  in  order  tha.t  the  frightful 
sacrifice  of  life  and  treasure  on  both  sides  might  not  be 
all  in  vain,  it  had  become  his  duty  as  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  Army,  as  a  necessary  war  measure,  to  strike 
a  blow  at  the  Kebellion  which,  all  otliers  failing,  would 
inevitably  lead  to  its  annihilation,  by  annihilating  the 
very  thing  for  which  it  was  contending.  His  own  words 
are  the  best : 

"  I  understood  that  my  oath  to  preserve  the  Constitu- 
tion to  the  best  of  my  ability  imposed  upon  me  the  duty 
of  preserving  by  every  indispensable  means  that  govern- 
ment —  that  nation  —  of  which  that  Constitution  was  the 
organic  law.  Was  it  possible  to  lose  the  nation  and  yet 
preserve  the  Constitution  ?  By  general  law,  life  and 
limb  must  be  protected  ;  yet  often  a  limb  must  be  ampu- 
tated to  save  a  life ;  but  a  life  is  never  wisely  given  to 
save  a  limb.  I  felt  that  measures  otherwise  unconstitu- 
tional might  become  lawful  by  becoming  indispensable  to 
the  preservation  of  the  Constitution  through  the  preser- 
vation of  the  nation.  Right  or  wrong,  I  assumed  this 
ground  and  now  avow  it.     I  could  not  feel  that,  to  the 


32  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

best  of  my  ability,  I  bad  ever  tried  to  preserve  tbe  Con- 
stitution if  to  save  slavery  or  any  minor  matter  I  sbould 
permit  the  wreck  of  government,  country,  and  Constitu- 
tion all  together." 

And  so,  at  last,  when  in  his  judgment  the  indispen- 
sable necessity  had  come,  he  struck  the  fatal  blow,  and 
signed  the  proclamation  which  has  made  his  name  im- 
mortal. By  it,  the  President,  ap  Commander-in-Chief  in 
time  of  actual  armed  rebellion,  and  as  a  fit  and  necessary 
war  measure  for  suppressing  the  rebellion,  proclaimed  all 
persons  held  as  slaves  in  the  States  and  parts  of  States 
then  in  rebellion  to  be  thenceforward  free,  and  declared 
that  the  executive,  with  the  army  and  navy,  would  rec- 
ognize and  maintain  their  freedom. 

In  the  other  great  steps  of  the  government,  which  led 
to  the  triumphant  prosecution  of  the  war,  he  necessarily 
shared  the  responsibility  and  the  credit  with  the  great 
statesmen  who  stayed  up  his  hands  in  his  Cabinet,  —  with 
Seward,  Chase  and  Stanton,  and  the  rest,  and  with  his 
generals  and  admirals,  his  soldiers  and  sailors,  —  but 
this  great  act  was  absolutely  his  own.  The  conception 
and  execution  were  exclusively  his.  He  laid  it  before 
his  Cabinet  as  a  measure  on  which  his  mind  was  made 
up  and  could  not  be  changed,  asking  them  only  for  sug- 
gestions as  to  details.  He  chose  the  time  and  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  the  Emancipation  should  be 
proclaimed  and  when  it  should  take  effect. 

It  came  not  an  hour  too  soon ;  but  public  opinion  in 
the  North  would  not  have  sustained  it  earlier.  In  the 
first  eighteen  months  of  the  war  its  ravages  had  extended 
from  the  Atlantic  to  beyond  the  Mississippi.  Many 
victories  in  the  West  had  been  balanced  and  paralyzed 
by  inaction  and  disasters  in  Virginia,  only  partially  re- 
deemed by  the  bloody  and  indecisive  battle  of  Antietam ; 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN.  33 

a  reaction  had  set  in  from  the  general  enthusiasm  wliich 
had  swept  the  Northern  States  after  the  assault  upon 
Sumter.  It  could  not  truly  be  said  that  they  had  lost 
heart,  but  faction  was  raising  its  head.  Heard  through 
the  land  like  the  blast  of  a  bugle,  the  proclamation 
rallied  the  patriotism  of  the  country  to  fresh  sacrifices 
and  renewed  ardor.  It  was  a  step  that  could  not  be 
revoked.  It  relieved  the  conscience  of  the  nation  from 
an  incubus  that  had  oppressed  it  from  its  birth.  The 
United  States  were  rescued  from  the  false  predicament 
in  which  they  had  been  from  the  beginning,  and  the 
great  popular  heart  leaped  with  new  enthusiasm  for 
"  Liberty  and  Union,  henceforth  and  forever,  one  and 
inseparable."  It  brought  not  only  moral  but  material 
support  to  the  cause  of  the  government,  for  within  two 
years  120,000  colored  troops  were  enlisted  in  the  military 
service  and  following  the  national  flag,  supported  by  all 
the  loyalty  of  the  North,  and  led  by  its  choicest  spirits. 
One  mother  said,  when  her  son  was  offered  the  command 
of  the  first  colored  regiment,  ^'  If  he  accepts  it  I  shall  be 
as  proud  as  if  I  had  heard  that  he  was  shot."  He  was 
shot  heading  a  gallant  charge  of  his  regiment.  The  Con- 
federates replied  to  a  request  of  his  friends  for  his  body 
that  they  "  had  buried  him  under  a  layer  of  his  niggers  ;  " 
but  that  mother  has  lived  to  enjoy  thirty-six  years  of  his 
glory,  and  Boston  has  erected  its  noblest  monument  to 
his  memory. 

The  effect  of  the  proclamation  upon  the  actual  prog- 
ress of  the  war  was  not  immediate,  but  wherever  the 
Federal  armies  advanced  they  carried  freedom  witli 
them,  and  when  the  summer  came  round  the  new  spirit 
and  force  which  had  animated  the  heart  of  the  govern- 
ment and  people  were  manifest.  In  the  first  week  of 
July  the  decisive  battle  of  Gettysburg  turned  the  tide 


34  ABBAHAM    LINCOLN. 

of  war,  and  the  fall  of  Vicksburg  made  the  great  river 
free  from  its  source  to  the  Gulf. 

Ou  foreign  nations  the  influence  of  the  proclamation 
and  of  these  new  victories  was  of  great  importance.  In 
those  days,  when  there  was  no  cable,  it  was  not  easy  for 
foreign  observers  to  appreciate  what  was  really  going 
on ;  they  could  not  see  clearly  the  true  state  of  affairs, 
as  in  the  last  year  of  the  nineteenth  century  we  have 
been  able,  by  our  new  electric  vision,  to  watch  every 
event  at  the  antipodes  and  observe  its  effect.  The  Eebel 
emissaries,  sent  over  to  solicit  intervention,  spared  no 
pains  to  impress  upon  the  minds  of  public  and  private 
men  and  upon  the  press  their  own  views  of  the  character 
of  the  contest.  The  prospects  of  the  Confederacy  were 
always  better  abroad  than  at  home.  The  stock  markets 
of  the  world  gambled  upon  its  chances,  and  its  bonds 
at  one  time  were  high  in  favor. 

Such  ideas  as  these  were  seriously  held  :  that  the  North 
was  fighting  for  empire  and  the  South  for  independence; 
that  the  Southern  States,  instead  of  being  the  grossest 
oligarchies,  essentially  despotisms,  founded  on  the  right 
of  one  man  to  appropriate  the  fruit  of  other  men's  toil 
and  to  exclude  them  from  equal  rights,  were  real  repub- 
lics, feebler  to  be  sure  than  their  Northern  rivals,  but 
representing  the  same  idea  of  freedom,  and  that  the 
mighty  strength  of  the  nation  was  being  put  forth  to 
crush  them  ;  that  Jefferson  Davis  and  the  Southern  lead- 
ers had  created  a  nation ;  that  the  republican  experiment 
had  failed,  and  the  Union  had  ceased  to  exist.  But  the 
crowning  argument  to  foreign  minds  was  that  it  was  an 
utter  impossibility  for  the  government  to  win  in  the  con- 
test ;  that  the  success  of  the  Southern  States,  so  far  as 
separation  was  concerned,  was  as  certain  as  any  event 
yet  future  and  contingent  could  be ;  that  the  subjugation 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN,  35 

of  the  South  by  the  North,  even  if  it  could  be  accom- 
plished, would  prove  a  calamity  to  the  United  States 
and  the  world,  and  especially  calamitous  to  the  negro 
race ;  and  that  such  a  victory  would  necessarily  leave 
the  people  of  the  South  for  many  generations  cherishing 
deadly  hostility  against  the  government  and  the  North, 
and  plotting  always  to  recover  their  independence. 

AVhen  Lincoln  issued  his  proclamation  he  knew  that 
all  these  ideas  were  founded  in  error  ;  that  the  national 
resources  were  inexhaustible ;  that  the  government 
could  and  would  win,  and  that  if  slavery  were  once 
finally  disposed  of,  the  only  cause  of  difference  being  out 
of  the  way,  the  North  and  South  would  come  together 
again,  and  by  and  by  be  as  good  friends  as  ever.  In 
many  quarters  abroad  the  proclamation  was  welcomed 
with  enthusiasm  by  the  friends  of  America;  but  I  think 
the  demonstrations  in  its  favor  that  brought  more  gladness 
to  Lincoln's  heart  than  any  other  were  the  meetings  held 
in  the  manufacturing  centres  by  the  very  operativer 
upon  whom  the  war  bore  the  hardest,  expressing  the 
most  enthusiastic  sympathy  with  the  proclamation, 
while  they  bore  with  heroic  fortitude  the  grievous  priva- 
tions which  the  war  entailed  upon  them.  Mr.  Lincoln's 
expectation  when  he  announced  to  the  world  that  all 
slaves  in  all  States  then  in  rebellion  were  set  free  must 
have  been  that  the  avowed  position  of  his  government, 
that  the  continuance  of  the  war  now  meant  the  annihi- 
lation of  slavery,  would  make  intervention  impossible 
for  any  foreign  nation  whose  people  were  lovers  of  lib- 
erty —  and  so  the  result  proved. 

The  growth  and  development  of  Lincoln's  mental 
power  and  moral  force,  of  his  intense  and  magnetic  per- 
sonality, after  the  vast  responsibilities  of  government 
were  thrown  upon  him  at  the  age  of  fifty-two,  furnish  a 


36  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN, 

rare  and  striking  illustration  of  the  marvellous  capacity 
and  adaptability  of  the  human  intellect  —  of  the  sound 
mind  in  the  sound  body.  He  came  to  the  discharge  of 
the  great  duties  of  the  Presidency  with  absolutely  no 
experience  in  the  administration  of  government,  or  of 
the  vastly  varied  and  complicated  questions  of  foreign 
and  domestic  policy  which  immediately  arose,  and  con- 
tinued to  press  upon  him  during  the  rest  of  his  life; 
but  he  mastered  each  as  it  came,  apparently  with  the 
facility  of  a  trained  and  experienced  ruler.  As  Claren- 
don said  of  Cromwell,  "  His  parts  seemed  to  be  raised  by 
the  demands  of  great  station."  His  life  through  it  all 
was  one  of  intense  labor,  anxiety,  and  distress,  without 
one  hour  of  peaceful  repose  from  first  to  last.  But  he 
rose  to  every  occasion.  He  led  public  opinion,  but  did 
not  march  so  far  in  advance  of  it  as  to  fail  of  its  effective 
support  in  every  great  emergency.  He  knew  the  heart 
and  thought  of  the  people,  as  no  man  not  in  constant 
and  absolute  sympathy  with  them  could  have  known 
it,  and  so  holding  their  confidence,  he  triumphed  through 
and  with  them.  Not  only  was  there  this  steady  growth 
of  intellect,  but  the  infinite  delicacy  of  his  nature  and 
its  capacity  for  refinement  developed  also,  as  exhibited 
in  the  purity  and  perfection  of  his  language  and  style 
of  speech.  The  rough  backwoodsman,  who  had  never 
seen  the  inside  of  a  university,  became  in  the  end,  by 
self  training  and  the  exercise  of  his  own  powers  of  mind, 
heart,  and  soul,  a  master  of  style,  and  some  of  his  utter- 
ances will  rank  with  the  best,  the  most  perfectly  adapted 
to  the  occasion  which  produced  them. 

Have  you  time  to  listen  to  his  two  minutes'  speech  at 
Gettysburg,  at  the  dedication  of  the  Soldiers'  Cemetery  ? 
His  whole  soul  was  in  it : 

"  Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation  conceived  in  liberty 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN.  37 

and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created 
equal.  Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing 
whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so 
dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great 
battlefield  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a 
portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting-place  for  those  who 
here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is 
altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 
But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate  —  we  cannot 
consecrate  —  we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave 
men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here  have  conse- 
crated it  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract. 
The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember,  what  we 
say  here  —  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here. 
It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the 
unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus 
far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here 
dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us  —  that 
from  these  honored  dead  we  take  iu  creased  devotion  to 
that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of 
devotion  —  that  we  here  highly  resolve,  that  these  dead 
shall  not  have  died  in  vain  —  that  this  nation  under  God 
shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom  —  and  that  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people 
shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

He  lived  to  see  his  work  indorsed  by  an  overwhelming 
majority  of  his  countrymen.  In  his  second  inaugural 
address,  pronounced  just  forty  days  before  his  death, 
there  is  a  single  passage  which  well  displays  his  indomit- 
able will  and  at  the  same  time  his  deep  religious  feeling, 
his  sublime  charity  to  the  enemies  of  his  country,  and  his 
broad  and  catholic  humanity  : 

"  If  we  shall  suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of 
those  offences  which  in  the  Providence  of  God  must  needs 
come,  but  which  having:  continued  through  the  appointed 


38  ABBAHAM    LINCOLN. 

time,  He  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  He  gives  to  both 
North  and  South  this  terrible  war,  as  the  woe  due  to 
those  by  whom  the  offence  came,  shall  we  discern  therein 
any  departure  from  those  divine  attributes  which  the 
believers  in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  Him  ?  Fondly 
do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pra}^,  that  this  mighty 
scourge  of  Avar  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  G-od 
wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 
bondsmen's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited 
toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn 
with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  with  another  drawn  by  the 
sword,  as  was  said  three  thousaud  years  ago,  so  still  it 
must  be  said,  '  the  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and 
righteous  altogether/ 

"  With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with 
firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right  — ■ 
let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in ;  to  bind  up 
the  nation's  wounds ;  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have 
borne  the  battle  and  for  his  widow  and  his  orphan  —  to 
do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting 
peace  among  ourselves,  and  with  all  nations." 

His  prayer  was  answered.  The  forty  days  of  life  that 
remained  to  him  were  crowned  with  great  historic  events. 
He  lived  to  see  his  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  em- 
bodied in  an  amendment  of  the  Constitution,  adopted  by 
Congress,  and  submitted  to  the  States  for  ratification. 
The  mighty  scourge  of  war  did  speedily  pass  away,  for 
it  was  given  him  to  witness  the  surrender  of  the  Rebel 
array  and  the  fall  of  their  capital,  and  the  starry  flag  that 
he  loved  waving  in  triumph  over  the  national  soil.  When 
he  died  by  the  madman's  hand  in  the  supreme  hour  of 
victory,  the  vanquished  lost  their  best  friend,  and  the 
human  race  one  of  its  noblest  examples ;  and  all  the 
friends  of  freedom  and  justice,  in  whose  cause  he  lived 
and  died,  ioined  hands  as  mourners  at  his  s:rave. 


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